The present invention relates to an apparatus for capturing an image and specifically for an image capturing apparatus for capturing a sequence of portions of a flat field image.
Digital cameras can be used to capture flat field images such as paintings, pictures, drawings, sketches and the like, (hereinafter referred to as the subject image) for storage in digital form. The captured digital data can then be processed, enhanced and combined with other digital information if desired. The digital data representing the subject image may then be displayed in printed media, via a monitor or any other known manner.
To achieve higher resolutions or to capture larger subject images, with limited storage capacities, it is possible to capture portions of the image in sequences and combine them together to form a digital data compilation representing the entire image. One method of digitally capturing flat field subject images includes taking a series of pictures of portions of the image with a digital camera and combining this series of digital photo sections digitally via software to create a digital reproduction of the original image. Accurate positioning of the camera and the subject image during the capture of each photo subsection facilitates recombination of the desired complete image. It is desirable to position the image accurately enough so that the pixels forming the digital representation of each image subsection can be aligned to recombine the subsections into the entire image. Uniform lighting is also required to accurately capture each photo section.
A reseau assembly, as disclosed in Leberl, et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,926,505), is a known device for obtaining accurate camera positioning. The camera is mounted in the reseau assembly and the subject image is placed in a fixed position within the assembly. The camera is moved to each desired location within the confines of the reseau assembly to capture the corresponding photo section of the subject image. This assembly has limitations in that the reseau assembly must be sufficiently large to place the subject image therein for capture. If a large subject image is to be captured, a large reseau assembly must be used. The reseau assembly is complicated and constructing large assemblies can be quite costly. It is desirable to have a simpler, less costly method and device to capture the photo sections of a subject image which can accommodate an image of any size or can be constructed of sufficient size relatively inexpensively.